Filmmaker Pins Hopes on a Beach Boy

TORONTO — The film producer William M. Pohlad has made his name in Hollywood backing award-winning films like “12 Years a Slave” and “Brokeback Mountain.” But he first tried his hand at directing, and his 1990 debut feature, “Old Explorers,” went virtually unseen, losing money for friends and family.

“I didn’t want to ever be the guy who did that,” Mr. Pohlad said in an interview just before unveiling his second directing effort — nearly a quarter-century later.

The new movie, a musical biography of the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, titled “Love & Mercy,” will have its world premiere on Sunday night at the Toronto International Film Festival. Written by Oren Moverman and Michael Alan Lerner, it stars both Paul Dano and John Cusack as the complicated Mr. Wilson at different points in his musically rich but psychologically troubled life.

Other than that, details remained scarce through the weekend, even in the gossipy film market. “No one has screened the film yet, including Harvey — total mystery,” one film executive said in an email. He was referring to the well-wired indie film executive Harvey Weinstein, and spoke on condition of anonymity because of confidentiality strictures.

The quiet approach is Mr. Pohlad’s way. A son and heir of the Minnesota billionaire Carl Pohlad, who died in 2009, Mr. Pohlad has for over two decades financed and produced movies that consistently get more attention than he does.

He was a backer and a producer of “12 Years a Slave,” which won the best picture Oscar this year. But Brad Pitt, one of his producing partners, received far more attention. Another pair of Mr. Pohlad’s films, “The Tree of Life” and “Brokeback Mountain,” received best picture nominations without making him much known outside Hollywood and his hometown, Minneapolis.

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John Cusack, as the Beach Boy Brian Wilson, and Elizabeth Banks as his wife, Melinda, in “Love & Mercy,” the second feature in 24 years to be directed by William M. Pohlad.CreditFrançois Duhamel

At this year’s Toronto festival, Mr. Pohlad arrived as a producer of “Wild,” with Reese Witherspoon, and “Time Out of Mind,” which stars Richard Gere and was written and directed by Mr. Moverman.

But “Love & Mercy” will test whether Mr. Pohlad has stepped beyond a small group of fellow scion-producers — including Megan and David Ellison, the children of the Oracle chief executive Lawrence J. Ellison, and the Hyatt hotel heiress Gigi Pritzker — to become a film director in his own right.

Mr. Pohlad, 58, who spoke over tea at the Shangri-La Hotel here on Saturday, said he was always certain that he would direct again. But he crept back slowly, partly because Hollywood is generally suspicious of film packagers who fancy themselves creators.

“I’ve always hated that appearance,” said Mr. Pohlad, speaking of an old cliché: the producer who really wants to direct.

In fact, Mr. Pohlad has paid his dues in the directing craft. After founding Minneapolis-based River Road Entertainment in the late 1980s, he spent a decade directing industrial films, commercials and documentaries.

But he also remained involved with family banking, soft drink bottling and other businesses that are now largely run by his two brothers. The family also continues to own a stake in the Minnesota Twins baseball franchise, which his father owned until his death.

“Love & Mercy,” Mr. Pohlad said, was financed with his own money. Its budget, he said, was “modest.”

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Paul Dano playing a younger Mr. Wilson.CreditFrançois Duhamel

The decision to keep the film under wraps until its public festival debut on Sunday night, Mr. Pohlad added, owes something to an acute sense of self-doubt. “As an unknown, people are going to be unsure,” he said, referring largely to the potential buyers who either will or won’t snap up distribution rights being sold here by both the Creative Artists Agency and Lionsgate.

The summer has been rough on musical biography. Clint Eastwood’s “Jersey Boys,” about the Four Seasons, took in only about $47 million at the domestic box office for Warner Bros., while Tate Taylor’s “Get On Up,” about James Brown, had ticket sales of just $30 million for Universal Pictures through last week.

And Mr. Wilson of the Beach Boys is a particularly difficult subject, given his evolution from the singer-songwriter of sunny hits like “Surfin’ U.S.A.” to his life as a reclusive eccentric, with plenty of hallucinogenic drug experimentation along the way.

“Love & Mercy,” said Mr. Pohlad, looks to the Beach Boys’ “Pet Sounds” album, from 1966, as a touchstone. The film has Mr. Dano portraying Mr. Wilson in a period of youthful vitality, while Mr. Cusack inhabits his more complicated later persona.

Mr. Pohlad said he became interested in Mr. Wilson’s story about two years ago, after being forced to sideline a decades-old dream project about the Formula One racer Jackie Stewart. That happened as its prospective writer, Peter Morgan, instead undertook another racing script, which became Ron Howard’s “Rush.” Rather than compete with that film, Mr. Pohlad joined forces with John Wells and Claire Rudnick Polstein, producers who had been trying to make a Beach Boys film and are now his partners on “Love & Mercy.”

Mr. Wilson and his wife, Melinda, played in the film by Elizabeth Banks, were persuaded to trust him with their life stories after being candidly advised that movie biographies never turn out quite the way their subjects might wish. “Brian is not a huge fan of social interaction,” Mr. Pohlad said when asked if Mr. Wilson might join a promotional effort.

As to whether the movie is all that Mr. Pohlad had hoped for, that should be clear by midweek, as the Toronto buyers make their choices.

“This is much more personal. There’s much more on the line for me,” he said.

“I’m definitely nervous.”

Correction:

An article on Monday about the movie “Love & Mercy,” a biography of the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, omitted the name of one of the film’s writers. Besides Oren Moverman, it was written by Michael Alan Lerner.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: Filmmaker Pins Hopes on a Beach Boy. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe